Greetings from Tampa Bay, Florida

Arvid and Annika, and their Great Dane, Pluto

S/V Inspirare is currently on her second cruising trip with Swedish/American couple Arvid and Annika, and their dog; a Great Dane named Pluto.

"In 2012 we set out to cruise the Pacific Coast from Seattle, WA, USA down to Mexico and back north again in our Bavaria 47. With the original sails from 2001 she sailed well for thousands of miles, but we knew it was time to get new sails by the time we left for our next adventure in 2016. We especially needed a new main sail after bashing into the wind and current coming up the coast.

We often talked about the cruising grounds we wanted to visit next, but the actual date was not set until late summer 2016, when the local weather started getting darker and colder. We’re leaving this season! That left us about six weeks to get ready to sail south before the fall storms started.

We´re leaving now!

We called all the sail makers in the area and their delivery times ranged from 3 to 6 months and included checkpoints and measurements at different stages. At this point we weren’t sure if there would be enough time to get new sails, so imagine our surprise when Elvstrøm Sails Denmark promised it only took three weeks from the first phone call to having new sails delivered in Seattle! That included a few days of talking to the knowledgeable people at Elvstrøm Sails about materials and other options, and shipping from Denmark to the US. It was a very smooth process for us, since Bavaria comes with Elvstrøm sails from the factory. We only had to confirm that the measurements they had on file were matching our boat’s specifications. The sails fit perfectly and needed no adjustments at all! As an added bonus the sails ended up being cheaper than any of the quotes we’ve got from other sail lofts.

Since September we have sailed down the pacific coast once again, visiting many places on our way. A few of them were Newport in Oregon and San Francisco, Monterey, Ventura and Catalina Island in California, before stopping in San Diego.

Around the time of Thanksgiving we loaded the boat on a big truck and met up with her again outside of Houston, Texas a week later. We continued to Florida from there. In the beginning of the new year we’ll continue south to Key West, FL and over to Bahamas! Proudly flying our white sails that still feel like new even though they already have taken us thousands of miles."